Mcbird McMansion Redux

I never understood the significance of the expression "Be careful what you wish for" until recently.

Nancy Rubin Stuart

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING – A family of finches took a shine to the author’s front door light, shunning a meticiulously prepared avian McMansion.

I never understood the significance of the expression “Be careful what you wish for” until recently. This spring, after remodeling our four-roost birdhouse – the “Mcbird McMansion” which The Barnstable Patriot featured in a March 25 column – we anticipated hosting a nesting bird and her brood. No such luck. The current glut of homes for sale on avian Cape Cod left the McBird McMansion sadly vacant. Little did it matter that it was well situated at the edge of a woods and the marsh and a few flutters away from a well-filled bird feeder.

During the Memorial Day weekend when one of our daughters visited, she, my husband and I often used the front door to get to the garden, hoping along the way to hear the cheery sounds of birds nesting in the birdhouse. No such luck. Instead, as we opened that door we were often startled by the furious flapping of a bird in flight. Late that Monday afternoon the three of us left the house together, only to have that bird swoop at us at nearly face level. Startled we ducked, then looked up. To the left of the front door a thatched cup-like collection of twigs sat on top of our flat front door light. “Oh, there’s a nest!” we simultaneously exclaimed.

Our McBird McMansion had been rejected in favor of a front door light. Go figure. Buyers, even feathered ones, are a flighty lot. Because of May’s cool temperatures and constant rains, our front storm door was still in place. The next morning – and for many mornings afterward – we looked through the glass storm door to view our feathered boarder. Since the hatching period for most song birds lasts two weeks, we avoided opening and closing the front door. After an initial consultation with our bird books, we decided that it was a house wren, then thought it was a Carolina Wren, until finally after I sent Mark Faherty, science coordinator at Mass Audubon/Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary photographs, we learned that the expectant parent was a finch.

Beady-eyed, convex-billed and garbed in nut-brown feathers, Philomena, as we dubbed her, followed the rules on proper pre-hatchling care. Day after day she sat patiently on her nest, winging away only momentarily for necessities – food and exercise. Now and then, she’d stare haughtily through the glass door at me, as if I were an intruder. Which, from her perspective, I was, even though my office – and indeed our house – was just a few feet from her domain.

Two weeks later, a great chirping summoned me to the glass door. To our astonishment, Phil, the new father, sporting a flashy orange cap and breast, was stuffing seeds down Philomena’s mouth. That, I later learned, was his post-partum duty, which lasted for five days, to help his mate spend her energy caring for the new chicks. Such is love and devotion among the well-feathered set.

Nor were Philomena and Phil first-time mates. In bird-years they may well have been approaching middle age, but there was no mid-life crisis here, no fly-away father or dead-beat dad. A few days after the chicks hatched, Phil and two half-grown finches arrived, hovering and chirping over the nest. Were they welcoming their new brothers and sisters? Or was it sibling rivalry? More likely, Mark Faherty cooly reminded me, those teenage finches were simply hanging out near their parents.

As the chicks grew, their fluffy heads began to emerge from the nest, their beaks thrusting eagerly into the air as Philomena and Phil tirelessly feathered their way back and forth with seeds and buds. Thanks to their superb parenting, their four chicks swelled in size and strength and began peering out of the nest – initially a bit cross-eyed, reminiscent of Disney’s caricature of Daffy Duck.

Until late June, the four-chicks remained in the nest, vigorously flapping their wings. One in particular, the largest chick, perched on the side of the nest, fluttering his wings and daring himself to fly before the others would. Possibly, that alpha bird was the first to hatch, or the one with the most greedy beak, for his brothers and sisters were slightly smaller and spread their wings less boldly. Then, suddenly, one by one they were gone, leaving an empty nest.

We already miss them, just as we miss our own children when they first fly the coop, feeling both lonely and relieved. Philomena and Phil may miss them too, but now they spend the summer collecting seeds for themselves and enjoying the bright days before the cold sets in.

As for us, their hosts? We failed to “sell” the McBird Mansion this spring, but the finches who nested at our front door brought us a unique birds-eye view of the power of the life force. Next year, perhaps we’ll advertise our birdhouse again – on Twitter, of course.